“At today’s cabinet meeting, we have decided that the decision on the third language would be decided by a committee headed by Narendra Jadhav (educationist and economist and former member of the Planning Commission). We will soon announce other members of this committee and they would speak to all stake holders and then submit a report to the state government. The state would take a decision on that basis. We have now cancelled the two GRs issued this year,” CM Devendra Fadnavis told journalists.
Fadnavis made the announcement a day before the Maharashtra monsoon assembly session began.
The April 16 GR had made Hindi mandatory as the third language for primary school students. However, after opposition to it, the state withdrew it and issued a modified GR on June 17 wherein the state stipulated that Hindi would not be mandatory but if any students needed to study any other language other than Hindi they would need to have a minimum of 20 students to sign off on the other language.
Critics claimed that this was another attempt of the state to get primary school students to learn Hindi as the default third language.
Fadnavis on Sunday, however, claimed that “this decision was taken by the Uddhav Thackeray government, when they accepted the recommendation of the Raghunath Mashelkar Committee which recommended that Hindi be taught as the third language for primary school students. Uddhav ji has signed on this report.” The Maharashtra government’s decision comes as there was massive opposition to it. In a huge embarrassment, the state government-appointed Language Advisory Committee has also opposed Hindi being introduced as the third language for primary school students saying that Marathi should be the priority for students in their early years. There were murmurs even within the BJP as there was talk that the issue could lead to a blow back for the party before the local body polls as the BJP was being perceived as an anti-Marathi party.The Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Sena and the MNS had called for an all-party march to Azad Maidan on July 5 against the imposition of Hindi. Uddhav Thackeray responded to the CM’s decision by saying that the state government did not want the Marathi community to unite and that on July 5, the UBT Sena would carry out a “victory march” instead of a protest march.
